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Europe's largest low cost airline, Ryanair, will enter the Bosnian market this year by introducing flights to Banja Luka. It comes following protracted talks with the government of the Entity of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The carrier will introduce two weekly services from Charleroi Airport in Belgium, each Monday and Friday, starting October 29, as well as from Memmingen in Germany from October 30, each Tuesday and Saturday. The Prime Minister of the entity, Željka Cvijanović, has said that "several additional destinations will also be launched" by the airline in the coming period. Tickets for the new routes are already available for purchase through the carrier's website.
Commenting on the new route, Ryanair’s Sales and Marketing Executive for Belgium, Helene Begasse, said, “We are pleased to announce a new Brussels Charleroi to Banja Luka route commencing this November. This new route marks Ryanair's entry into Bosnia and Herzegovina, and wi…

The world's largest carrier, American Airlines, is considering introducing seasonal flights to Dubrovnik. According to the "TangoSix" portal, the company is in talks with the airport over a seasonal service from Philadelphia. A decision on the matter is expected within the next month. American operates a number of seasonal flights to Europe from its Philadelphia hub including Athens, Barcelona, Budapest, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Lisbon, Prague, Shannon and Venice. This year, the airline expanded its reach from Philadelphia into Europe with seasonal flights to Budapest and Prague. Both are operated by its Boeing 767-300 aircraft. The move is seen as affirming American’s commitment to Philadelphia as a trans-Atlantic gateway.
Dubrovnik Airport has identified the United States and South Korea as two far-away markets which could sustain services to the coastal city. Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News, Dubrovnik Airport's General Manager, Frano Luetić, said, "These two far-…

Croatia seeks airline partner for US flights

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The Croatian Ministry for Tourism is in search for a carrier willing to launch flights between the country and the United States. Airlines from both the US and Europe, including leisure carriers, are all in consideration, with the government determined for services to begin next year on a seasonal summer basis, before being upgraded into year-round operations in 2019. Recently, Tourism Minister, Gari Cappelli, said, "We are in serious negotiations over the introduction of year-long flights from Croatia to New York, most likely from Zagreb and Dubrovnik, even from Split. All signs point towards the introduction of seasonal flights during the high season in 2018 and year-long services in 2019". He noted that the Croatian embassy in Washington has taken upon itself to seek out potential operators and that talks regarding the introduction of flights should continue during his upcoming visit to the States.

Several US-based airlines have ruled out operations to the former Yugoslavia at this point. The world’s second busiest carrier, Delta Air Lines, told EX-YU Aviation News it is satisfied with its presence in the region, noting that it codeshares with Air France and KLM between Paris, Amsterdam and Zagreb, as well as with CSA Czech Airlines between Prague and the Croatian capital. “Codeshares are an important part of Delta’s network strategy as they allow us to reach parts of the globe that we do not operate to ourselves. We have many partnerships of this nature around the world”, a spokesperson for the airline said. They added, “Although we continually evaluate our markets and make adjustments to our network when required, we are happy with our current network footprint in the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe in general and at this stage do not have any plans to update this”.

American Airlines, the US' largest airline by fleet size, noted, "American constantly evaluates our network to ensure we are maximising our fleet and profitability while matching customer demand. While no airline can serve every destination, our joint businesses and alliances with airlines like British Airways and membership in Oneworld allows our customers to seamlessly connect to Croatia". On the other hand, Star Alliance member United, which has a wide-ranging codeshare agreement in place with Croatia Airlines, said it has no plans to serve the country for the time being but added, "While we have not announced anything about this market [Croatia], we’re always looking for new opportunities". Despite the reluctance from the big three US airlines, it should be noted that any European Union registered carrier can operate services from any point in the block to the United States if it holds a valid foreign air carrier permit with the United States Department of Transportation. For its part, Croatia Airlines' CEO, Krešimir Kučko, said, "We have the general goal of starting transatlantic flights. Maybe not within the next five years, but we all have dreams".

The General Manager of Zagreb Airport, Jacques Feron, previously said it would be "fantastic" for the Croatian capital to offer direct flights to the United States. "In the US, New York would be an excellent destination, although it is true that this metropolis is well connected to all major European airports", Mr Feron said. His words echoed that of Sani Sener, the CEO and founder of TAV Airports Holding and TAV Construction, which forms part of the consortium running Zagreb Airport. He noted that the most desired route from the Croatian capital would be New York. The last time Croatia had scheduled flights to the United States was during the summer of 1991, when Pan Am maintained four weekly nonstop roundtrips from New York to Zagreb with its Airbus A310 aircraft. Prior to that, JAT Yugoslav Airlines ran services from Zagreb to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

I think OU will be forced to start service to NYC if no new carrier comes along and starts the service themselves. No idea if Air Canada Rouge flies to NYC and if there can be some sort of a deal between OU and Air Canada, to cover that destination, as they're the only airline that I know off that still uses B767.

If no deal comes along, OU might be forced to convert 2 A320 Neo in to A321 LR Neo, and start direct service to North america via Dublin.

The thing is, first class on A321 is unheard off, to make this route viable, at least 20 business class seats @150cm pitch will be needed, reducing the economy seating down to 168 or 174 seats @82cm pitch.

With 194 pax, A321 LR NEO has range of 8000km, so Zagreb - NYC is also a possibility, without stop over in Dublin.

However daily service to NYC will be difficult to maintain in winter months.

US airlines have poor coverage in Europe so I am not counting on any of them. European airline is most probable. I just don't want it to be some no name leisure airline because it limits connection opportunities.

But what is visible even for outsiders - and an indicator reg. JUs finances - is the schedule, meaning the cuts in ops, the ticket pricing in combination with LG, meaning that almost everybody can figure out that the JFK flights are everything but for sure boy profitable, and it is evident that all the recent changes are a result of poor financial performance. And it is also evident that all this trouble started after JU introduced JFK. So - no. A politically imposed route is never good. And same goes for ZAG JFK. And if a minister and am embassy have to search for carriers this only means there is no real (profitable) market. As simple as that.

Purger: seems you are really not capable to understand all the explanations that A321LR will NOT be able to make it regularly between HR and ZAG, judging by official Airbus performance forecast considering an airplane never flies close to the shortest gc route. It has been said and discussed on here many, many times. Now please don't bring this up every one or two weeks - it gets annoying.

I would be more happy if they tried to attract a LCC to base an aircraft. Having flights to New York is nice but the benefits of having an established LCC serving several cities out of ZAG outweigh a few flights per season to New York.

In 2010, Tonci Peovic ex-ZAG CEO offered the following to airlines to start Zagreb-New York

- Airport will purchase a certain number of seats on each flight in order entice the airline to initiate the flights. -The airline will be exempt from paying landing and handling fees in the first year, with the fees progressively introduced within the next five years.

The OD market is definitely there. Today however there are much more 1 stop opportunities that at those times. When PA used to fly direct, LH had barely 2 daily flights to NY from FRA. Nowadays you can go from ZAG via MUC,FRA,LHR,CDG,MAD,WAW,AMS, ZRH,IST,CPH,VIE and others at fares starting from 350€ return. This of course makes any direct flight less economic unless you can get the premium for a direct service, which is often difficult.

Yes, Pan Am was flying to ZAG, DBV and BEG from FRA. When A310 direct was introduced all this was discontinued, and the only flight was to ZAG with JP used as connection from ZAG to DBV and BEG. They had PA flt nr. By the end of summer 1991, PA had a few JFK-ZAG-DBV-JFK flights, and all finished, as far as I remember, 1st of September. I was PA staff @ZAG at the time.

What these numbers also do not say is the real potenital of air traffic; you cannot easily count on what comes into Croatia via sea or part of European tours. Direct services would increase demand for sure, but you need to realize that these numbers are far from automated passengers on future flights (also noting that if you don't have daily service, it would shatter to 1 stop options as well etc....). Thta being said, I truly hope we get flights to the US, but as anon above says, it is far from given + JU lesson is there...nobody wants to bleed money unless financed by somebody else or some higher interest.

Jesus, I thought that this is air blog where we don't have to go throw basics as in low profile public blogs. Participants here should be educated enough that we don't have to explain simple facts.

Of course, my god, that most of those tourists are on tours that goes to several destinations and countries. I wrote about that just 2 days ago on Tango 6. But, still more than enough would use that route. That is why I put here comparison with similar market (Canada), not with Korea which has same amount of tourist into Croatia.

So, if on 111.000 tourist from Canada we can have capacity of 33.000 seats on 2 week flights (A330-300), than for sure on 338.000 tourist we can have at least same number of flights (2 pw).

Of course on top of tourist there is diaspora, business travelers, politicians, NATO...

Yes, Croatia market is probably better cut for some LCC option...ideally with visa waivers in place and low fares, it could possibly survive year round service with probable extra revenue during summer and hopefully break even/minimal loss durign winter periods. Now, we will see if there are carriers willing to invest!

Alen, although you had excellent articles, reports regarding the aviation in the region, I found your message above (as well the way you present figures) quite amateur. I even don't want to comment on your risk assessment (which seems to be the opposite according to professional analysts in the airlines), please try to study the case more carefully (hint: check the city pairs instead of across the country figures) and it's always better to use the same source for comparison (don't pick the lowest available figure for one and the highest available for another - diaspora figures).

Earlier this year, I had a meetings with Delta in DTW. I was interested in their expansion plans and whether they would have any interest in flying to Ex-Yu. At first it seemed as none of them even heard for Croatia or Slovenia but then when I presented them with more information about the region such as tourism travel, relatively large Diaspora travel, geographic position, airline alliances...they became very interested and promised they would do some more market research about feasibility of non-stop flights to ZAG or LJU. Delta is famous for exploring and testing new markets in Europe and Africa. They serve numerous small and mid-size destinations in Europe such as Nice, Stuttgart, Venice and have had pretty big success.

If you were the one that put Croatia on the map for them without them having any idea of it, then they absolutely 100% will not even consider that. Not sure what kind of a meeting was that, but you also need to note that business meetings always end up in very cordial 'we are interested' tone...unless you are minister of transportation, tourism or some REALLY influental person, and you talked to some very senior DL manager, I don't put absolutely any weight to your meeting. If it ever happened.

That YOU had to point on the map Croatia and Slovenia and that they've never heard of them before, then either this story is fake or these "gentlemen" from Delta should be fired ASAP. If you work for one of the biggest airlines in the world, you can't happen to know about pretty much any country in the world.

Hahahaha!!! Yeah, sure! But of course! Employees of one of the largest airlines in the world have never heard of Slovenia and Croatia! They have definitely not only heard of, but can give you a mini expose about countries that you have never heard of, like Kiribati, Djibouti, Benin, Kirgistan for instance. Your story about them never having heard of two EU member states is such an obvious lie.

Interesting, The demand for this route will be quite high, as the people from the Balkans will come to Zagreb to fly to the States and vise verse, Croatia is a nice tourist destination and i think this is a profit-making decision.

I would say that probably 80% of the Bosnian Diaspora from North America uses ZAG as either their final destination and then drive to Bosnia or as a stop-over on their way to SJJ. If the NYC-ZAG flight prove to be true, this will take lots of passangers away from BEG as well.

All this smells as preps for EK's extension to its existing Zagreb service (DXB-ZAG-JFK/EWR-ZAG-DXB) based on alteady existing proven model via ATH and MXP. If no US carrier jumps in, EK would be more than willing to feel the gap. EK gets an additional boost to its existing Zagreb service and bypass on board electronics ban. Watch out for this development....

This route is a political project. If there was enough demand, one of US3 carriers would already start the service. Yield will be low, market is saturated with one stop connections. There is not enough premium demand on the route. There is no demand for year-round operations. If they offer connections within region they will get killed by the competition offering one stop via large EU hubs.

This is not my opinion on the potential ZAG-JFK route. Above comments were taken from discussions regarding a service to JFK from another regional destinations. As they say in the movies, any similarity is purely coincidental.

You are absolutely right. Actually, no one would care if there's a direct flight to New York, Toronto, Beijing or not, had this route not been a political project for all countries in the region.

And we all know what happens when politics is directly involved in commerce. Therefore OU acts very clever on transatlantic issue. And I hope somebody warns the minister to calm down, we all see what's happening to JU because of this ambitious but unrealistic move.

The minister is doing his job and if there is a money to be made than I'm sure any interested parties will consider this. I just think that when it comes to Southeast Europe, that extra hour of flight time makes it really difficult to be competitive and profitable.

I would add that I'm surprised by the number of first class passengers flying to Zagreb with Emirates.... So their could be a decent demand upfront especially during the summer for these flights.

Calm down everyone. Its UA - daily flights all year with a mix of 767 and 757s depending on demand and yes OU will be codesharing to Newark and opening up new routes to capture the transfers. Eg. Pristina and Skopje. The above has been a work in progress for quite some time. ZAG are good at keeping things quiet until contractually executed. And yes this is long overdue and yes the route will be successful. Should have happened years ago. Will also make a reliable option for Serbians ex BEG who want a daily option rather than something sporadic

I fly PIT-ZAG every year in summer and would still prefer to fly PIT-CDG-ZAG with DL/AF or PIT-FRA-ZAG with Condor/LH. I suspect many travelers who don't fly from USA but not from NYC would rather do one-stop at major EU airport than connecting through JFK (ugh).

I know personally Minister of tourism. He knows about flights as much as he knows about space travel.All of these stories do not make sense. The only reasonable flight that might make sense is seasonal flight Atlanta - Split. For that purpose Split airport has to be equipped for intercontinental route. It is not just flight, it is service to the airplanes, catering, security screening, fuel supplies, baggage handling and many other things.ATL airport is the biggest in the World and it's in 2-3 hours flight available to the most of USA passengers. Delta, pretty much has monopoly on ATL. The only option is for Croatia Airlines to cut its relations with Lufthansa and join Delta's alliance and to build hub in Zagreb or Split to become regional hub for Delta. PRICE of the airport services is what attract carriers, not Minister's wet dream.

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